Open up books on Assembly spending

In different circumstances, the spat between Assembly Speaker John Pérez, D-Los Angeles, and Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, D-La Cañada Flintridge – triggered by Portantino’s vote against a June budget deal – might have come to a quiet end earlier this month. That’s when Pérez backed off his plan to sharply cut Portantino’s office budget because of dubious claims that the lawmaker was guilty of severe overspending.

Instead, Portantino’s grousing about Assembly budget secrecy – coupled with absurd claims by Assembly officials that their spending records are exempt from open government laws – piqued the interest of investigative journalists. This has yielded many troubling revelations.

The latest provocative report, in the Sacramento Bee last week, laid out how Assembly rules give Pérez “sole authority” over tens of millions of dollars, money he uses to reward and punish lawmakers, depending on their compliance with his wishes. Hundreds of staffers for individual legislators are actually paid not through individual members’ office budgets but through funds set aside for committees and legislative leaders. Portantino’s description of these practices as amounting to a huge speaker-controlled Assembly “slush fund” seems legitimate.

The worst abuse cited by the Bee came when Fabian Núñez was speaker, from 2004-2008. The Los Angeles Democrat gave big pay raises to 55 aides on the brink of retirement so as to spike their pensions. Nine of the 55 worked for Núñez, including his chief of staff, whose pay soared from $170,000 to $212,000. When Assembly Rules Committee Chairman Hector De La Torre objected to this maneuvering as a taxpayer ripoff, Núñez punished the South Gate Democrat by taking away his chairmanship and presumably his additional staff.

Defenders of the system say the speaker needs to have a way to impose discipline on members, many of whom are inexperienced in the ways of Sacramento, thanks to term limits. They also point out that hardball political tactics are as old as politics itself.

Some see the primary issue as transparency, not the speaker’s tactics. Former Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson says the speaker’s unilateral spending authority should be maintained, so long as Assembly spending is detailed on a regular, timely basis.

Ultimately, however, we prefer both much more openness and the more formula-based model for setting lawmakers’ budgets and staffing that is used by the state Senate, where many decisions are controlled by the Rules Committee. Its members are chosen by the Senate president, to be sure. But there is a formal process for divvying up funds and aides, which makes decisions much less autocratic and reduces the potential for abuse.

Alas, Portantino got nowhere with his proposal to have the Assembly use the Senate budgeting model. But we give him credit for trying – and for crying foul about the Assembly’s abuse of the public trust in the first place.